Friday, October 1, 2010

Con drama

The last post got me to reminiscing about cons. And I always come back to one story which is at the same time more annoying and more funny than almost any of them. Names changes cause internet and all that. Kind of a long story but still my favorite.

This took place at Anime Central about 3 years ago. For anyone who has been they should be familiasc with the IRT and their bullshit. For those who don't know they are the Incident Response Team, glorified con security. These guys realistically have no more power to tell people what to do than I do, but they were all given matching tactical vests and headsets now they all think they're a damn Swat team. They spend their time yelling at people for talking to loud(in a crowd of 4000 people?) standing too near or to far away from something important or anything else they could think of. If I wasn't drunk most of the time they would bother me.

So I'm up there with about 5 friends, all staying in my hotel room. We're having a good time and before you know it Saturday night rolls around. Saturday night is party central. 75% of the people are drunk/on drugs, everyone is just mingling everywhere, theres a rave going on. It's freaking sweet. So at one point during the night my friend Joe is outside smoking. There is so many people out front that the sidewalk area is literally full. So he stands about 2 feet from the curb in the street area smoking. So some bull dyke of an IRT shows up and starts yelling at him to get on the curb. And by yelling I mean literally screaming. Now Joe is a cool guy albeit slightly anti-authority. So just replies "Dude, I'm 2 feet from the curb. Chill". So she does the reasonable thing and calls in 4 more IRT. At this point they surround him and start demanding all this stuff like his ID and badge and everything. Naturally he refuses because he doesn't have to. They try to take him to security but he knows they can't so they argue and eventually agree for him to be escorted back to his room. So he tells them the room number and they start over there.

Halfway there in the middle of the lobby he stops and says to the two IRT "What would you guys do if I just took off?". They stand there confused for a moment until he laughs, then they do to. Then he says "But seriously, what would you do?" Before they can even respond he just bolts. This guy is 6 even 130 pounds and ran track, not your typical nerd. So he's gone into the con of 20,000 people before they even know what to think. So of course they continue to be reasonable and call the cops because he was "disturbing the peace and probably on drugs". Neither of which was true at the time. So the cops start looking for him and tell the hotel security head what room he is staying in. My room.

At the same time. I'm just doing my thing around the con dressed as Suiseseki from Rozen Maiden(or That Desu Girl for you 4chan types). At this point I have no idea about anything that happened. I'm chilling with my friend Steve over by the executive tower where my room is. First we see 3 or 4 security go by, then more. Then 2 cops go by. Steve turns to me and laughs "It'd be funny if they were looking for Joe". So we start walking back to the main lobby when we pass 2 more cops going toward the tower. As we pass I hear one of the cops say into his shoulder mic"Yeah the name on the room is Vickie ******". And all I can think is "What the hell did I do?"

So I run into a few more friends as I walk around and eventually I learn that IRT, the cops, and the head of hotel security are looking for me because my name is on the room he was in. I try to go back to my hotel room and find that they've cancelled all of my room keys. So I suck it up and head to the front desk. Standing there talking are 4-5 IRT, a cop, and the Hotel Security Head. I tell them who I am and they just stare for a moment(Still had my male name, so they didn't expect a short girl in a formal dress). hotel security tells me "I've been looking for you". I tell them what I know about Joe and the fact that I haven't seen him in hours(truth). I call him while standing there with him but all he will say is he is in "a safe place". So hotel security and the cops give me an ultimatum; I can have one room key(there is 6 people in my room). If they come check later and find that I'm harboring him in there they will arrest us both. I doubted the charges would stick but I'm out of town, on vacation, and drunk. So I get my key all tell Joe that he needs to find somewhere else to sleep. The rest of the night went pretty much without incident.

I don't see him until noon the next day. It turns out he ended up in some Jewish families hotel room who weren't even there for the con. He slept there and had kosher hot dogs. It was like the story of Anne Frank except funnier. That day he just changed his shirt and put contacts in and IRT and security never even noticed him. I'm assuming they long since gave up. So we all escape without anyone going to jail. I write a huge rant on the ACen forums and eventually a whole bunch of the IRT get fired.

So that's one of my funnier/more stressful shenanigans from cons. I'll try and keep my stories shorter next time, but I've never been known for brevity.